A New Day
by Redlance-ck
Summary: Post-Extinction: Alice tracks down Claire-now bitter and resentful-but Alice is running scared and deep down Claire is hurting. They both know the only way old wounds will heal is if they let them. Alice, riddled with guilt and remorse, needs convincing.


**Disclaimer: **Nothing is mine. Except the story idea.

**A/N: So, this started out as a prompt from my girlfriend: "Claire takes the lead." But it didn't turn out as I think she probably would have expected it to. It kind of, as most of my things inevitably do, turned to sap. hope you enjoy anyway. ;) **

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"You left." Claire's bitterly spoken accusation is met with unwavering silence. Alice can feel fiery green eyes burning a hole in her face, but she won't lift her gaze to meet them. She hasn't earned that right yet. "You left us. When we needed you the most, you left us." The redhead's voice is even and strong, but Alice can hear Claire's heart hammering in her chest. "We had all already lost so much, Alice. We were scared and headed for a place we weren't even sure existed. And you just..." Out of her periphery, Alice sees a Claire wave a hand defeated in the air. It's a hand Alice knows is deceptively strong and soft, yet slightly calloused from weapons and the harshness of the desert.

Then there is silence. Alice stands still before Claire, in the worn but mostly functioning kitchen of the house she's claimed for herself and K-Mart. It's been partially painted a pale purple, no doubt the young teenager's choice, and a newly made table sits separating them in the centre of the room. There are only two chairs.

"I had to." And they are the first words Alice has spoken since she was allowed into the house. Her low voice is rough, and even though they've spent months apart after only know each other for a short time, it is still so very familiar to Claire. She feels the hair on the back of her neck prickle and when Alice finally lifts iridescent eyes and their gazes meet, Claire feels that same memorable stirring of her stomach. The same sudden sweeping coolness that's quickly followed by a warmth that spreads through every inch of her body. She remembers what it's like to forget her words, and then frowns when she recalls how it feels to have ones filled with venom suddenly fill her mind and pour of out her mouth.

"You didn't have to do anything, Alice." She snaps, with enough force to break the quiet tension and she wonders if Alice remembers the burn of them. Alice does. "You **wanted** to leave." There's a painful note of betrayal in Claire's voice. "You wanted revenge, to fix everything. And you wanted it more than me." Claire hesitates for a barely noticeable seconds. "More than all of us." And Alice doesn't think she can fix this.

"I had to finish it, Claire. With Isaacs still alive-" Claire holds a hand up, cutting her off mid-sentence, and Alice can't remember the last time she'd been so utterly dismissed.

"And now he's dead we're all safe? Now you've dealt with him, you can stop running?" The absence of answers fills the room with a deafening silence. And then finally;

"It won't ever be safe to be around me." Alice can do things, things a normal human being can't. When the T-Virus bonded with her, it changed her so completely that most days she doesn't recognise herself. She is aware that most find her presence unsettling, her gaze disturbingly intense, but Claire Redfield can accomplish far more with a single look, can cause so many more different kinds of destruction than Alice can with all of her superhuman abilities combined. Claire folds her arms across her chest and leans back against the worn countertop to stare at Alice. And there are so many emotions packed into her expression that even Alice's brain can't discern them all.

"Then why are you here?" Alice had anticipated the question, but even after all the time she's had to think up an answer, she still doesn't have one. At least, no one she'll allow herself to admit to. "Why bother looking for us if you aren't going to stay?" Claire sounds angry and hurt and confused, and Alice doesn't know what to do. "What are you really afraid of, Alice?" Though she knows there's no fooling her hearing, the dark-haired loner isn't sure she heard right. But Claire doesn't really expect an answer anyway. "You've been running for so long... do you even really remember what it's like to be around people? To live with people?" Alice's mind flits back to a few mere weeks prior, to the clones she had found herself surrounded with, perfect replicas of her body and mind, and she doesn't think that counts. Flanked on all sides by herself, she was still alone.

"If I'd stayed, they would have come after you." A truth so simple, Alice believes it completely, and the part of her that wanted to fly in search of Arcadia with Claire's now small group of people had been flattened by the weight of it. Suddenly, movements quick and sharp with rage, the redhead vaults forward until she can slam her hands onto the sanded surface of the kitchen table. Her hair falls over her shoulders as she leans over it, towards Alice, eyes burning hotter than the desert sun.

"They **did** come for us, remember?" How could Alice forget? "They know you have ties to us and they don't care what they are. Don't you see that it doesn't matter to them if you aren't here with us... that they would come for us all anyway?"

"Your people are scared of me, Claire!" Alice has never been prone to outbursts, Claire can't recall ever hearing her raise her voice in anything other than a warning, but she raises it now. Taken aback, Claire can only watch as Alice turns away to look out of the small kitchen window. The brunette rests her arms on either side of the sink to brace herself, a sudden wave of something akin to vertigo sweeping over her. She screws glassy cobalt blue eyes closed and takes a shaky breath. "They see what I can do, the death and destruction that follows me everywhere I go: it scares them." There's a pause in which Alice can hear the muscles in her back twitch and tense because she can feel Claire moving somewhere behind her. "And I don't blame them."

"If it weren't for you we wouldn't even **be** here. We'd have probably been picked off by crows or roamers or who the hell knows what by now." Claire's voice is closer and Alice's fingers grip the wood beneath them until her knuckles turn white. "You saved us." A loud crack fills the room and Alice spins to face Claire with tears in her eyes and half the countertop in her hands.

"I didn't save anyone! People are dead because of me, Claire! Carlos, Mikey, Rain, Angie..." Alice's rough voice breaks completely on the last name and she drops her eyes to look at the splintered pieces of wood she's holding. "Everything I touch..." And then Claire is there, taking the wood out of her grasp and placing it on the counter behind Alice. But then instead of moving away, Claire shifts closer until Alice's vision is filled with the plain black t-shirt the redhead is wearing and she's forced to look up at her, a thousand unanswered question shimmering in iridescent orbs. Claire's are brilliant, gazing at Alice unfalteringly.

"Touch me." Alice's gut instinct is to laugh, maybe run in fear, but Claire's expression is serious and she's close enough that Alice would have a hard time escaping unless she threw her off of her. So she remains still, head filled with Claire's scent and heartbeat, and a crippling anxiety that makes her pulse race so fast even she can't catch it. "Alice." The other's woman's voice is soft but determined and Alice is so afraid, she can't move. And Claire knows it. Has always known it. People look at Alice and see supremacy, a dark unknown, a walking powerhouse of strength that nothing can stop and no one can touch. They don't see a person, or fragility, or any of the things expected of 'normal people'. Nobody, except Claire. "Touch me."

And everyone needs some encouragement sometimes.

Alice feels waves of heat roll over her as Claire's body shifts, and then there is fire licking at her wrists as strong fingers enclose them and Alice's arms feel suddenly light as they're lifted. Her palms burn as Claire forces them to make contact with her body, placing Alice's hands on her hips and then sliding her grip from the brunette's wrists until her own cover them. With a firm pressure, Claire holds their hands still, and even though she can feel Alice twitching imperceptibly before her, the seemingly stoic woman doesn't try to escape. Doesn't try to run. And Claire feels a thin trickle of something like triumph run through her.

"Not everything you touch breaks, Alice." Her breath tickles the side of Alice's face as Claire leans in to whisper the words to her. "Some things are stronger than you think." The redhead pulls her head back slightly and lets it loll to the side to allow her eyes to roam over Alice's face. Fear isn't something she thinks many people have had the chance to see cloud the brunette's features, make her brilliant eyes misty and sweat bead on the back of her neck. Most people don't look long enough, but when it comes to Alice, Claire has always paid attention. Stared a little longer than most. And she remembers, vividly, the last time she saw that same look on Alice's face. Back in the desert, a lifetime ago.

"I..." Alice's raspy voice cracks under the weight of Claire's gaze and she cuts the thought short, unsure of where it was leading anyway.

"See?" Emerald eyes flick down to their hands, connected on Claire's hips, then back to ones that have turned ice blue in the new light of the morning. "Still in one piece." Alice's lips part as if to say something as she stares at Claire, but no words will leave her. Just quick, shallow breaths. She thinks, briefly, about how it's almost like claustrophobia. How she feels slightly suffocated and like the walls, and Claire, are closing in on her. She feels panic clawing at the pit of her stomach, jarring her fight or flight instincts into action, and she wants to run. But she feels the hands over hers applying a gentle, squeezing pressure and it anchors her. "Stop running, Alice." Feels Claire's voice settle her. "You don't need to prove you're untouchable... right wrongs that weren't your fault. Stop punishing yourself and open your damn eyes long enough to see that we need you here." There's a beat of silence in which Alice can hear the thudding of a heart in her ears, she just isn't sure who it belongs to. "That **I **need you here." Alice's vision swims at that and she blinks harshly in an attempt to clear it, but she doesn't need to see Claire's face to understand the conviction being poured into the next words. She can hear it. "The only way you'll break me is if you leave again." And then an inexplicable urge to collapse or cry or something incredibly over dramatic grips her and it's all she can do to keep standing.

Because wouldn't that be a sight? The superhuman warrior falling helpless and vulnerable at Claire Redfield's feet. If only Carlos could see her now.

She feels herself waiver and closes her eyes against Claire's intense gaze, digging her fingers into the redhead's hips in an effort to stay standing. Unconsciously, Alice pulls the other woman closer, until she can feel warm breath on her face, and her eyes open when feels Claire's hands sliding up along her forearms. It's a test of sorts, Claire relinquishing her hold, but Alice couldn't move now even if she wanted to.

Fire meets ice and in a breathless moment everything rockets to a standstill. Time itself holds its breath as it watches, waiting for Fate to lay its final card. Waiting to see if they'll fall from this final precipice or walk away from it. If they'll break, or move away stronger.

Then something shifts the air, a whisper of new life leaves Claire in the form of Alice's name and in a blur of motion even time can't keep up with the redhead is suddenly closing the distance between them. Pressing cold-damaged lips against ones that are trembling, but Alice doesn't fight it. Can't, not anymore. Claire's hands find her shoulders, grip gently but with a firmness that bores all the weight of a finality Alice can no longer recall a reason for running from, and with barely noticeable movements that feel like they burn holes in Claire's skin, Alice pulls them close enough that their hips are flush against one another.

The sun rises behind them, heralding the new day, and it won't be long before the doors to the houses that occupy the other survivors start to open. But for now, in the small eternity that lies somewhere nestled between the sleeping and waking hours, all else is forgotten. The past, the guilt, broken promises; the blackness is powerless against the light. And in that dusty, dim kitchen, there is only the two of them. And the promise of a better day.


End file.
